Huge appetite sees return of Stokesley Food Week

Following the success of the first ‘Stokesley Food Week’ last year and also the popular Tourfest event to celebrate the Tour de Yorkshire in May, business owners and residents in Stokesley are again being invited to get involved in another food week.

The event will run from October 1st to the 8th and will be a dedicated celebration of local eateries, food producers and retailers from across the local area for residents and visitors to Stokesley.

Stokesley Food Week showcases the wide variety of restaurants, cafes, pubs and other food-related businesses in the market town and is being organised by Stokesley Parish Council which has managed to secure funding from the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP which, alongside contributions from local businesses, will allow organisers to build on recent successes.

Local businesses are invited to attend a meeting on September 20th at 5.30pm at Stokesley Town Hall to find out more and get involved or submit any ideas to stokesleypc@gmail.com.

The event will include a range of activities such as pop-up food demonstrations by well-known local chefs, special promotions, free samples and wine tasting. The week will kick off with special events at the monthly Stokesley Farmers’ Market- itself named the best farmers’ market in England in 2014- held on The Plain on Saturday 1st October.

Ian Blakemore, parish councillor, said: “Last year’s event was an incredible success despite the fact we organised it in a very short space of time. What’s more, our Tourfest celebrations created such a buzz that we’ve had dozens of requests and ideas about holding more events. So Stokesley Food Week is back and we plan to make it bigger and better for 2016.”

Stewart Brennan, parish councillor, said: “There’s such an appetite for events in Stokesley thanks to previous successes so it seems the natural time to host another Stokesley Food Week. The aim is to showcase our beautiful town and vast array of businesses to residents and people from all over the area too. We’ve got some great activities planned which we will share in the coming weeks. Thanks to the LEP funding and support of local businesses we hope to make this year’s event even bigger than last year.”